Drummer Boy at Bull Run (7 page)

“Well, our first Bible given away, Pa.” Leah smiled. “I hope he does read it.”

“All we can do is sow the seed. But I’ve got the feeling that if we’re faithful, God will use His Word mightily. Come on, let’s go see if we can find your brother.”

Thirty minutes later they were talking excitedly with Royal. They had found him drilling, but his sergeant, who had looked up and seen the visitors coming, shouted, “Squads, dismissed.”

Royal shook his father’s hand and gave Leah a hug, sweeping her off her feet. “Shucks, I didn’t expect to see you here!” he exclaimed. His face was sunburned, and he seemed to have lost weight.

“How are you, boy?” his father asked quickly.

“Oh, I’m fine.” Royal shrugged. “Soldiering isn’t like I thought it would be, though.”

“How’s that?”

“Why, I guess I thought we’d be marching right off to fight the Rebels!” He grinned sheepishly. “But look at this.” He held out a wooden gun and gave a half laugh. “You can’t stop the Rebels with wooden guns, can you now?”

“Why’d they give you that?” Leah asked curiously.

“Because there’s not enough real guns to supply the army. I guess we’ll be getting them soon enough. Come on, let me see your wagon.”

As he turned to go, Royal suddenly called to a young man standing watching them. “Hey, Tuck, come on. I want you to meet my family.”

The young man who approached was no more than seventeen. He had light blue eyes and a shock of coal-colored hair and a liberal supply of freckles across his sunburned skin. “This is Tuck Givens. We came into the regiment together,” Royal explained. “This is my father, and my sister, Leah.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Tuck mumbled. He shook Mr. Carter’s hand and nodded bashfully toward Leah. “Royal’s been telling me all about you.”

“Well, come on, and I’ll tell them all about you,” Royal said. He winked at Leah. “You want to watch out for him, Leah. Givens is a lady-killer.”

“Aw, shoot!” exclaimed Tuck, his face flushing. “Don’t you believe a word of that.” He glanced again at Leah. When he saw that she was laughing at him, a grin spread across his wide lips. “This brother of yours, he’s really something.”

The four made their way to the wagon, and Tuck and Royal helped them find the park where the other sutlers had set up camp. There were six sutlers in all, and nothing would do but that the two young
men would set up the tent that Leah and her father would share.

When they were through, Royal looked toward the wagon. “Pa, looks like you got your first customers already. Look at ’em—they’re swarming like bees.”

Indeed, a large group of soldiers had gathered around the wagon.

“Well, that’s good. You come and help me, Royal—you can introduce me to some of your friends.”

Leah moved to go with him, but Royal said, “Let me help Pa this time. Tuck, you show Leah around the camp.” He winked again, saying, “You watch out for him, Leah. I’ve told you what a fellow he is with the girls.”

When the two men left, Tuck bit his lip and said, “Well, Miss Carter, I’d be glad to show you the camp if you’d like to see it.”

“Yes, I haven’t ever seen anything like it. But you can call me Leah, if I can call you Tuck.” She smiled at him, cocking her head to one side and making an attractive picture. “What a funny name! Is that your real name, Tuck?”

“Aw, no. Just a nickname. My real name is Robert—but Tuck is fine.”

For the next hour the young soldier showed Leah as much of the camp as could be covered on foot. She was fascinated by the drill teams and by the large herd of cavalry horses. Then she was fortunate enough to witness a cavalry charge on a large, open field.

As they watched, Tuck said, “I sure wish I was in the cavalry! It beats walking. They walk us about ten to fifteen miles a day, it seems like.”

“Why don’t you join the cavalry then?”

“Oh, that’s a pretty fancy outfit. I guess I’ll just stick with the infantry.” He hesitated. “Your brother, Royal, he’s a fine fellow. I’d hate to leave him now. We’ve become good friends.”

As the two walked back, Leah found herself wondering about the young men such as Tuck Givens. They had come from all over the North to form this army that was being put together, and she realized that this was only the beginning. The training and the drill would soon be over, and, sometime out in the future, young men like Tuck Givens would be dying. She didn’t want to think of that, so she spoke cheerfully of other things as they returned to the wagon.

* * *

The army seemed in no hurry to pull out. Leah settled down, waiting every day for the call that would inform them the soldiers were leaving. But days went by that turned into weeks. May was approaching its end, and still the men did their daily drill. Almost every day, finely dressed ladies came out from the capital accompanied by their equally finely dressed husbands. The aristocracy of Washington came to watch the drills, and more than once some of them came by to talk to Leah and her father.

They were fascinated by the young girl, it seemed. One of them said severely, “I wouldn’t let my daughter be around these soldiers. I’m surprised at you, sir!”

Dan smiled gently. “I discovered, ma’am, that virtue is the same in camp or out—that goodness endures no matter where it goes.”

The woman sniffed, turned, and walked away.

Leah laughed out loud after she was gone. “You hurt her feelings, Pa.”

“Well, maybe she’s got something on her side. I can see how people would be worried.” He gave Leah a look and said, “You have heard some rough talk, I guess?”

“Oh, sometimes the men forget, but mostly they’ve been real careful.”

Her father laughed. “I can understand that—after Royal pounded the daylights out of that soldier who cussed in front of you. That was an object lesson, I guess you might call it.”

Leah flushed as she remembered the incident. “I guess that had something to do with it—but they’re mostly really nice boys. They’re so young, Pa! It’s hard to think about them going out and maybe dying.”

His eyes were sober. “And they’re dying right now in the hospital.” He bit his lip. “I never thought young men would die from measles.”

Before the Federal and Confederate armies had even met, disease swept both camps—diphtheria, diarrhea, and most of all measles. In some companies, more than half the soldiers were down, and some of them had actually died.

Leah frowned. “You know, I’m worried about Tuck. Those measles he got, they’ve drained all his strength.”

“I know. I reckon we ought to go over and see him.”

They made their way to the regimental hospital, and when they went down the aisles of beds, many of the soldiers spoke, for Leah and her father had visited before, leaving tracts and small gifts. Leah
felt sorry for them. They all looked so young. “I wish we could stop and talk to all of them, Pa.”

“Maybe we can come back later.”

Then they arrived at Tuck’s cot and saw that it was empty. “Why, he was here yesterday.” Leah blinked in surprise. A male nurse was passing, and she said, “Has Private Givens been dismissed?”

The nurse, a tall, thin man with a full beard, hesitated. He fumbled at the button on his uniform. “No, miss.” He hesitated again. “Are you his family?”

“Oh, no, we’re just friends of his.” A premonition came to Leah, and she asked in alarm, “He
is
all right, isn’t he?”

The nurse shook his head. “He took real bad, miss, last night. His fever shot up—and there wasn’t nothing we could do for him.”

Leah and her father stared at the man in horror.

“You don’t mean,” Mr. Carter whispered, “that he died?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. Too bad! Too bad!” The nurse shook his head. “He was a fine young man. All the men loved him in here.” Sadness came into his eyes, and he stroked his beard. “I never get used to it,” he murmured. “All these young men come to fight for their country, and they die of measles! Too bad. Too bad!”

Leah walked away quickly, tears blinding her eyes. She was aware that her father was beside her, and when they were outside she turned to him and whispered, “Oh, Pa, how awful! He was such a fine young man … and to die like that … away from home, among strangers …”

“But he was a Christian,” Mr. Carter said. “We know that much, so we can be glad he’s gone to be with Jesus—as sad as it is to lose him.”

He looked over the hospital tent and murmured, “How many more will have to die before this war is over?”

L
eah had great difficulty getting over the death of Tuck Givens. As a matter of fact, she never did get over it—nor did she ever become accustomed to the deaths that occurred daily among the troops.

“I don’t think I can stand it, Pa!” she moaned one day. “If it’s this bad before they go to fight, what will it be like afterwards?”

Washington had filled itself with young men from all over the country. The capital park had become a drill ground, and soldiers stretched on the grass in the shade to watch the activities of other regiments.

The men of the First Rhode Island spread their bunks beside the patent office. They were dressed in simple coarse uniforms—gray pants, dark blue flannel shirts, and army hats turned up at the side. Across their shoulders they slung their scarlet blanket rolls.

Daily the troops poured in, until finally Mr. Carter exclaimed one day, “There’s only so many cats you can put in a sack! I don’t know how many more soldiers they think they can stuff into this town.”

But the Washington populace greeted the newcomers with glee. There had been rumors that the South was mounting an invasion, and Congress and the people welcomed the soldiers. A high board fence had to be built at the depot to protect the
troops from the cheering crowds. Every day the population turned out to see them parade onto the avenue. From New Jersey came 3,200 men, the largest group that Washington had ever seen in line. The well-equipped regiments received their baggage and were sent to make camp on the hills around the city.

By the middle of May, vast loads of freight were coming to Washington by rail and by the Potomac. The navy yard was filled with steamers, schooners, and tugs carrying thousands of blankets and tons of coal, hard bread, and groceries. A herd of cattle ordered to provide fresh beef for the soldiers was put on the grounds of the Washington Monument. Many of them fell into the canal. It took a day and a half to drive them back to the shore, and six fine beefs were drowned.

Daily they flowed in, and a gaily dressed and carefree crowd strolled through the grounds to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” “Upidee,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.” Saturday afternoon Marine band concerts went on regularly, and the president hoisted the big new flag contributed by the clerks of the Interior Department.

One regiment of New Yorkers attracted more attention than others—the Seventh Infantry. A young man named Elmer Ellsworth had recruited a regiment from the volunteer fire departments. A gang of roughs dressed in gray, scarlet, and blue Zouave costumes were armed with rifles and huge bowie knives and encumbered with handsome presentation flags.

Heavy-shouldered, hard-faced, spoiling for a fight, the fiery Zouaves tumbled off the cars asking
for Jeff Davis and growling over the fact that they had not gotten into battle yet. As they marched up the avenue, Ellsworth took the cheers of the gathering crowds. His Zouaves were ready for battle, he declared.

The fiery Zouaves had little respect for anything. In their gaudy, fancy dress they swung themselves down ropes from the cornice of the Rotunda and hung like monkeys from the edge of the Capitol dome. They had great respect for their little colonel but were as wild as wharf rats. One day some seized a wandering pig, cut its throat, and ate it. They bought new shoes at a fashionable bootmaker’s and directed the bill be sent to Old Abe—President Lincoln. Dinners and suppers, cigars and transportation, were charged to Jeff Davis.

So Washington’s prayers for soldiers were answered. The country town had been turned into a great confused garrison, and the entertaining novelty soon began to pall. Quiet residential neighborhoods were in an uproar. Soldiers drilled and bugled and drummed all over the place. Irresponsible as children, they fired their weapons in any direction—in the streets and even in houses.

Leah and her father could not keep enough supplies. The soldiers quickly bought them out, which meant they had to make trips into the city to get more and more supplies for their wagon. They gave away many tracts and Bibles, and almost every night there was a religious service somewhere in the vicinity of the camp.

Royal and his friend Jay Walters, who had enlisted with him in Pineville, spent a great deal of time with Dan Carter and Leah.

Another young fellow had joined Royal, whose name was Ira Pickens. Pickens was a tall, lean youth with a head of bushy black hair. He was plain almost to the point of ugliness but spent a great deal of time boasting about his sweetheart back home in Rhode Island—Rosie.

One day Ira approached Leah with a request.

She could see he was nervous and tried to put him at ease. “What is it, Ira? Do you need some supplies?”

“Uh … no … I don’t need nothing out of your wagon, but—” He broke off and stared at the ground. He was obviously embarrassed and could not go on.

Leah had grown accustomed to the bashfulness of many of the soldiers and asked at once, “What is it, Ira? You know I’ll help you if I can.”

Ira lifted his eyes and said, “Well, the thing is, I can’t write.”

This did not come as a surprise to Leah. Many of the young men could not, especially those from backwoods districts.

Pickens bit his lip. “You know I had to leave my gal Rosie when I jined the army, and I’m afraid some of them fellows that didn’t jine up are giving her the rush. Since I can’t go back and whup ’em, I guess the onliest thing I can do is write her letters.”

“Oh, why I’d be glad to write her for you. Just a minute.” Leah bustled around, got pen and paper and ink, and sat herself down at the small table just outside their tent. “You just say what you want, and I’ll put it down for you, Ira.”